Yes, I Model — and Yes, My Hijab Is My Crown

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In Boston, my Somali friend and I scarfed down fried pickles and crab legs and chatted about good food, Islam, and being a woman in America. We then ordered these huge desserts that we could barely finish just because.

I swiped over to the photos that I took for this independent Muslim designer, Buno Designs, who makes these bomb handmade kimonos in the U.K. The photographer was Parisian, a hijabi, and so sweet. And even though I was dead tired from flying overseas, I had approximately 30 minutes to rush to the shoot. I was totally surprised that they had come out so well.

The waitress had returned to the table with our bills and came up from behind my friend who was admiring the photos.

“That’s you?” The white server asked.

“Yes, it is.”

“You a model?”

I raised a brow. “Yes.”

“May I?” My friend handed her my phone. She swiped right, seemingly puzzled by the photos I took. Every once in a while, she’d glance at me then back at the photos. I waited for her to say something off the wall. She finally handed the phone back.

“Where are you guys from?” She followed up with her interrogation tactics. This was a quite common question from her kind.

“Where were those taken?”

“London,” I said modestly. “I had a few modeling gigs there.”

“You model with that on?” she pointed to my scarf. “All the time?”

“Yeah, I model with my hijab on.”

Becky crossed her arms over her chest trying to figure out how someone like me could model, how someone my size and my religion could be living that kind of life that she had been told was only for thin, white women. She couldn’t figure out how to compare me to the Muslims she’d seen on CNN. The ones who were very Middle-Eastern or very extreme. Confusion was written all over her face.

“Where are you guys from?” She followed up with her interrogation tactics. This was a quite common question from her kind. She was expecting the Middle-East, because clearly there are noooo other kinds of Muslims anywhere in the world.

“I’m African-American Muslim,” I said with a smile.

My friend replied, “I’m Somali Muslim.”

“Oh.” Becky nodded then after an awkward pause she said, “Those photos are really nice.”

I yearned to reply: I know. But I said thanks instead.

People had been making such a big deal out of not seeing my hair that I started to view hijab as the problem…and not society and how they viewed differences of other cultures and religions.

I knew she wanted to pry more into our lives but had other tables to wait. Or maybe she got the very real feeling that her delivery was all wrong and that her presence was annoying us. Whichever one it was, her mind was doing complete somersaults as she walked away. She’d just been taught a lesson on stereotyping.

But this incident got me to thinking about hijabs and why we wear them. And how others perceive a girl in hijab. A girl whose visibly Muslim AF.

When I was younger, not even going to lie, I had major issues with the hijab. It made me stand out, made me different. And different wasn’t in. I yearned to be normal. For the most part, I wore it because if I didn’t, I felt it’d make Mom angry, disappointed in me somehow. But I didn’t like the way it made me feel. It was a piece of long, draping cloth on my head that wasn’t that serious, but was at the same time. People had been making such a big deal out of not seeing my hair that I started to view hijab as the problem…and not society and how they viewed differences of other cultures and religions. I was too young to understand that. So, I blamed the hijab.

For me, growing up, the hijab was so closely connected to the identity of being a Muslim woman. We looked down upon girls who didn’t opt to wear the hijab. We called them weak. Ostracized them. Questioned their faith and asked what was so hard about wearing it. I mean, hadn’t they loved Allah? We had been conditioned to predict whether you were a “good” Muslim based on a cloth that covered your hair and neck. I fell into that trap, that mentality, until I was faced with the same challenge: to wear or not to wear.

“Out of all the kids, I thought you’d be the one to stop wearing your scarf,” my non-Muslim aunt said to me. I was like 19. And it hurt my feelings.

I guessed my struggle with it was more outward than I initially thought. Even though, I’d never taken it off in front of her, she sensed my indecision. For me, the hijab became safe, a habit. I wore it out of loyalty and not want. I snatched it off in the night when I was going out to party. I just wanted to be without the attachments of it, but it’d always resurface. I’d show my ID to the bouncer and he’d stare at it for a long time. Then glance up at me. My ID showed a hijabi. The girl who stood in front of him was a “regular” girl just wanting to have a good time. One was so brazen to ask where my hijab was. I snatched my ID from him and stormed into the club.

How dare he? I thought.

The next question to myself was, where was my hijab?

***

I’ve learned a lot as I’m nearing the big “3.0.” I’m even working on a memoir to showcase the evolution of self. My growth into becoming me. Being OK with being Muslim. Being Black. Being short. Being overweight. Being a child who’s parentless. And because I’m cool with me, I also understand that others may not be, and that’s cool, too, because that has absolutely nothing to do with me. Your dislike of my choice of hijab, is personal and ignorant.

People wear their hijab (or don’t wear it) for many different reasons. But the majority of people, including Becky at the restaurant, believe that it’s a sign of oppression. The media has made it so that closed-minded individuals have been brainwashed to think that when they see a Muslim woman covering her hair and body that automatically equates to she’s being forced by her evil Arabic speaking father. They have all these notions of you being bald, you being forced into an arranged marriage, you being subservient to a man, and that you absolutely, unequivocally couldn’t be a feminist. All hell would break loose if a hijabi were to be a feminist. *Gasps*

Deciding. Really deciding to unapologetically wear my hijab for me has been the most freeing and rebellious and feminist thing I could possibly do.

I don’t wear my hijab for others so they could think I’m a good, practicing Muslim girl. Nah. I do it because it is me, it is my crown, my shield. It tells people that I’m strong in my belief whether I say it or not. I’m proud and loud of who I am. And that no bigot shall prosper on my watch. And because I’m so “out there” with it, it makes individuals (like Becky) very uncomfortable. They just can’t figure out how a girl like me continues to defy odds, being different, being openly true, while getting beat down daily for being a minority Muslim.

“They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.” — Dinos Christianopoulos

Leah V. is a Detroit local and freelance writer. When she isn't working on posts for her body positive style blog, she is editing her dystopian novel. Check Leah V. out at www.beautyandthemuse.net and follow her on Instagram @Lvernon2000

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Thank you for writing this. I used to be one of the ignorant white girls who thought wearing hijab was a sign of oppression. While it *might* be for some women–if you are wearing something you don’t want to wear because someone else is forcing you, regardless of what that item is (hat, bra, pants, long skirt, whatever), it’s oppressive–I have now been educated that for many Muslim women, choosing to wear hijab is an act of empowerment. And identity. And many more things. Thank you again.

Leah Vernon

I’m sooo glad you shared this. And you hit it head on. It’s OUR choice